Smoking in a vehicle while someone under the age of 18 is also present would be against the law under legislation filed by two Jacksonville-area Republicans.

“If someone wants to smoke in their car, that is their decision,” said state Rep. Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville. “But not while children are there, they don’t have a choice.”

McBurney is the bill’s House sponsor, while state Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, is carrying the bill in the Senate.

Under the legislation, anyone smoking in a vehicle while a minor is present would face a non-moving violation. A driver can only be cited for smoking in a car where a minor is present as a “secondary action,” meaning they would first have to be pulled over for another violation.

McBurney said he filed the bill after meeting with parents concerned about the issue.

“One saw someone in a car with two young children in the back, and the vehicle was filled with smoke,” McBurney said. “When they told me about it, I began to notice it myself.”

Bean said he was also motivated by first-hand experiences.

"We have all been at the red light and looked across and saw a child strapped in with no choice but to breath in that toxic air," he said.

The development of the second hand smoke thesis as the medical/health reason for the war on smokers has created a second class level of citizenry similar to that of the old Jim Crow laws. The T~U might want to revisit the ' science' of second hand smoke and the unintended consequences of its adoption and possibly call for an end to the steady promulgation of regulations based on it. It should do so not with the attitude of the drunk with the lamp post but with an attitude of fair mindedness.